Evaluating the Detection of Oceanic Mesoscale Eddies in an Operational Eddy-Resolving Global Forecasting System

In this study, a global analysis and forecasting system at 1/12° is built for operational oceanography at the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center (NMEFC) by using the NEMO ocean model (NMEFC-NEMO). First, statistical analysis methods are designed to evaluate the performance of sea level anomaly (SLA) forecasting. The results indicate that the NMEFC-NEMO performs well in SLA forecasting when compared with the Mercator-PSY4, Mercator-PSY3, UK-FOAM, CONCEPTS-GIOPS and Bluelink-OceanMAPS forecasting systems. The respective root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs) of NMEFC-NEMO (Mercator PSY4) are 0.0654 m (0.0663 m) and 0.0797 m (0.0767 m) for the lead times of 1 and 7 days. The anomaly correlation coefficients between forecasting and observations exceed 0.8 for the NMEFC-NEMO and Mercator-PSY4 systems, suggesting that the accuracy of SLA predicted using NMEFC-NEMO is comparable to Mercator PSY4 and superior to other forecasting systems. Moreover, the global spatial distribution of oceanic eddies are effectively represented in NMEFC-NEMO when compared to that in the HYCOM reanalysis, and the detection rate reaches more than 90% relative to HYCOM reanalysis. Regarding the strong eddies in the Kuroshio region, the NMEFC-NEMO reproduces the characteristic for anticyclonic and cyclonic eddies merging and splitting alternatively. As for the detective eddies in the Gulf Stream, NMEFC-NEMO effectively represents the spatial distribution of mesoscale eddies from different seasons. The amplitude of oceanic eddies, including both cyclones and anticyclones, were much stronger on 1 July 2019 than 1 January 2019. Overall, NMEFC-NEMO has a superior performance in SLA forecasting and effectively represents the oceanic mesoscale eddies for operational oceanography.